David Wright Hugs Fan After Homerun (VIDEO)
New York Mets superstar David Wright delivered on the field and in the stands during Monday night's baseball game against the Yankees.
Before Wright's at bats during the game, a young fan, identified as Max Rubin, told the Mets third baseman to hit a homerun while he waiting on the on deck circle, reports NJ.com.
At the time the score was 1-0 Yankees in the bottom of the seventh. Like an answered prayer to the Mets and the anxious crowd, Wright stepped up to the plate and smacked a solo homerun off of Yankees starter Phil Hughes to tie the game at 1.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
At the end of the game Wright can be seen walking over to Rubin for a a hi five or fist bump, but what he got was a big hug instead. The kid excitedly embraced Wright as he realized he got his wish in an important spot from a player who will undoubtedly be his favorite one now.
"He wasn't having it," Wright said laughing as he tried to go in for a hi-five reports the Daily News. "He went in for the full-on hug. He was really excited."
"I never caught his name," said Wright after, who remembered the boys pleas for him to hit a homerun as he was rounding third base.
Having no idea the video of him hugging the boy would go viral, he said initially the boy was not at his seat after the homerun, so he decided to try again at the end of the game.
"My dad used to take us to the (Triple-A Norfolk) Tides and they would have a meet-and-greet day and we'd go every year. . . . I wasn't a shy kid, but kind of, and my dad would tell me, 'Go over there and get your picture with this guy,' and 'Take a picture with this guy.' Looking back on that, it was pretty cool. That was really the closest I ever got to this," said the Daily News.
The 30-year-old ball player was happy the video went viral and also spoke on a video from a few weeks prior where Matt Kemp gave a terminally ill boy his whole uniform.
"Sometimes, and probably rightly so, some people view us as robotic," Wright said. "There is not a lot of interaction with fans. In the middle of the game it is hard to interact, so when you see something like the Matt Kemp video, that was cool. Any time you see stuff like that, like LeBron (James) tackling the guy at midcourt after he hit that halfcourt shot. That's cool."
While Wright's heroic homerun may remind some of Babe Ruth's folk-lorish "called shot" for the boy in the hospital, this could be chalked up to to clutch hitting by the ballplayer's while remembering a kid who "called a shot," in order for his team to win.
That tie was broken an inning later after Mets 2nd basement Daniel Murphy hit a single off of David Robertson to help the Mets go up 2-1, a score that will hold up until Bobby Parnell, the Mets closer, sealed the deal.
